Those were the words echoed by U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Terry Hasenauer, in reference to a strange substance floating in the Arctic near Alaska.

” The stuff is “gooey” and looks dark against the bright white ice floating in the Arctic Ocean, Brower said.

“It’s pitch black when it hits ice and it kind of discolors the ice and hangs off of it,” Brower said. He saw some jellyfish tangled up in the stuff, and someone turned in what was left of a dead goose — just bones and feathers — to the borough’s wildlife department.

“It kind of has an odor; I can’t describe it,” he said.”

…

“From the air it looks brownish with some sheen, but when you get close and put it up on the ice and in the bucket, it’s kind of blackish stuff … (and) has hairy strands on it.”